Thryptomene australis
Thryptomene australis, commonly known as hook-leaf thryptomene, is a species of flowering plant in the family Myrtaceae and is endemic to the south-west of Western Australia. It is an erect, bushy and spreading shrub with upward-pointing leaves with the tip curving outwards, and flowers with white petals arranged spike-like near the ends of the branchlets.
Description
Thryptomene australis is an erect, bushy and spreading shrub that typically grows to a height of with upwards-pointing leaves with the tip curving outwards. The leaves are linear to narrow egg-shaped with the narrower end towards the base, long and wide on a petiole long. The flowers are arranged in pairs in up to eleven leaf axils near the end of branchlets. The flowers are diameter with egg-shaped to broadly elliptic white or pale pink sepals about long and wide. The petals are white, broadly egg-shaped, long, and there are seven to ten stamens. Flowering mainly occurs between July and November and the fruit is a nut about long and wide.Taxonomy
Thryptomene australis was first formally described in 1838 by Stephan Ladislaus Endlicher in Stirpium Australasicarum Herbarii Hugeliani Decades Tres, published in the journal Annalen des Wiener Museums der Naturgeschichte and was the first species of Thryptomene described. The specific epithet means "southern".In 2001, Barbara [Lynette Rye] and Malcolm Eric Trudgen described two subspecies in the journal Nuytsia and the names are accepted by the Australian Plant Census:
- Thryptomene australis Endl. subsp. australis has eight to twelve stamens on filaments usually longer than ;
- Thryptomene australis subsp. brachyandra Rye & Trudgen has seven to ten stamens on filaments usually shorter than.